We drove through the gritty streets of downtown Los Angeles in search of a billboard designed by Miguel, a shy Mexican teenager who spoke little English. He had recently come to the U.S. illegally in the trunk of a car.
Miguel was a member of Heart of Los Angeles Youth, an after-school program for at-risk high school students. Those of us in the car with Miguel recently completed a project that was created and lead by community artist and educator Janeil Engelstad. Visualizing Violence paired inner-city high school students with graphic designers in Los Angeles to create billboards around the theme of gun violence.
We made a sharp turn and there was Miguel’s billboard, posted high above an auto parts store. We all hopped out, elated to see how great it looked. For a long time, Miguel stared silently at the billboard, it was the first time he had seen the small painting he did weeks ago enlarged to 40 times its original size. The central image was a small boy playing with a toy gun, to the left of him was the image of a young man dressed for work, to the right a gang member brandishing a gun. “What will your little cowboy be when he grows up?” asked the billboard.
Billboard from Visualizing Violence by Miguel, age 19, in collaboration with mentor Janeil Engelstad.As tears welled in his eyes, Miguel broke his silence and said, “I feel like we Latinos are always the ones blamed for gun violence, people say we don’t care.” He went on to say that he was proud to take a stand and communicate his concern around the issue so publicly. We could tell by his comments that creating this billboard had a profound effect on him, that the act of developing a powerful message for his community encapsulated the promise of America.
Simple as it may seem, this billboard exercise not only exposes students to a potential career in design, but demonstrates to them the power of design to impact social change. As designer Victor Papanek said in Design for the Real World, “Design can and must become a way in which young people can participate in changing society.” By instilling these ideals in the next generation of creative talent, we will help them to carry these ideals into their professionals lives.
The challenge facing the design community in particular is how to expand what we do to have a greater impact in the area of social change. The traditional approach to social responsibility, in graphic design at least, has revolved around two things: the materials we choose, i.e., specifying recycled paper, and the clients we choose, i.e., working with a nonprofit or messaging a corporation’s socially responsible agenda.
We designers have the ability to contribute so much more. As the definition of designer expands we should add social entrepreneur to the list. Those designers in the forefront are using their design-thinking skills to develop and execute their own solutions to social problems-pushing the boundaries of what design can do. By taking the lead in implementing our own projects, we can and should set precedents and create sustainable markets for socially responsible design.
John Bielenberg, a Belfast, Maine, and San Francisco-based graphic designer, used his entrepreneurial spirit to start Project M in 2003. This program for young people was inspired by the work of Samuel Mockbee and Rural Studio.
The Rural Studio brings architecture students to Hale County, Alabama, where they design, fund and build extraordinarily innovative housing and community projects for one of the most underserved areas of the U.S. During the hot and dusty summer of 2007, Bielenberg and a group of eight intrepid college students headed south to the head-quarters of Rural Studio for a month, to see how graphic design could improve the lives of Hale County residents.
“When we start a project, I act as catalyst; it’s the students who take the lead to determine which issue we'll tackle,” says Bielenberg. His goal is to take the students out of their comfort zone and to teach them to “Think Wrong”—the Project M motto.